“Those power washers do the job,” Sister replied.
“Given what you paid for them, industrial strength as I recall, they should. What was it? Three thousand dollars, and that was five years ago. God knows what they are now.”
“Let’s go into the office. Warmer there. Both of you are cherry red.” Sister placed the back of her hand on Betty’s extra-rosy cheek. “Cold.”
Once inside the office, a nice room with the Louis XV desk in the center, they sank into chairs.
“Where did you all go?” Tootie inquired.
“The huntsman here,” Betty nodded Weevil’s direction, “thought a climb to Hangman’s Ridge would be good for their engines.”
Betty called the hindquarters of any animal the engine, which included humans. Those glute muscles drive one.
“Well?” Sister raised her eyebrows.
“My engine knows I climbed that grade, as do my calf muscles. Usually we ride up there. It’s a haul but hounds enjoyed it.”
“I suppose, but that place is creepy,” Weevil admitted. “It’s the steepest grade we have but when I get up there on that plain, the thick branches of that hangman’s tree sway and it kind of gets me,” he confessed.
“Gets all of us,” Betty agreed.
Golly, stretched on the leather top of the gorgeous desk, lifted her head. “The dead men are still there, unquiet. We can sometimes see them. You humans can’t. It’s not a good place.”
Sister, sitting behind the desk, rubbed the cat’s ears. “Eighteen people were hanged there, men. Each one had a trial even then, rule of law although it was harsher, of course.”
“Do you think people believe in the law?” Tootie, often quiet but always thinking, asked.
“They say they do,” Betty replied, “until they get caught.”
“Doesn’t matter what country, what century, not much changes on that issue and the laws are made by those who can read and write and we take that for granted.” Sister thought about this then changed the subject. “Shaker called last night from Cleveland.”
“How is he?” Betty missed their huntsman of decades who had suffered a neck injury last winter season.
“As long as he doesn’t pound himself, his words, he’ll be fine. He won’t talk about it right now but if he hunts that’s a pounding. Even a smooth canter is a pounding. Once he gets home I’m hoping Skiff can talk sense to him. He won’t listen to me, I know it.” Sister pressed her lips together.
Skiff Kane, Crawford Howard’s huntsman, had become Shaker’s girlfriend. They spoke the same language. He had flown to Cleveland for the expert medical diagnosis and care there, and stayed with friends. Jefferson Hunt paid for this, of course. He was reluctant but he did go, as it was his last chance. Six months ago, neck still out of line, Sister sent him to a specialized clinic in Houston. They felt he was as good as he would be. Since he couldn’t accept that, burning to once again carry the horn, Sister sent him to Cleveland.
“You’re the master.” Tootie obeyed a vertical hierarchy but she knew Shaker and all who hunted understood.
“I learned a lot from him.” Weevil had whipped-in to the big hunt outside Toronto, before that, then wound up in Virginia, serendipity.
“Weevil, much as we all admire and even love Shaker, I don’t see how he can ride hard. It would scare me half to death,” Sister admitted. “No one necessarily wants to see a great huntsman give up the horn due to age and injury, but it’s how it works. We all are happy with your work and hounds love you.”
“I don’t want Shaker to think I’m conniving behind his back,” Weevil said.
Betty quickly responded, “He’s not like that. Stubborn, opinionated, but he is fair-minded, and remember he took over the horn when Ray died. It’s the way it happens.” She named Sister’s late husband, who died in 1991.
“You know what I’ve been doing?” Betty waited for all to ask then continued. “The missing fingers. Well, missing from long ago. I’ve been researching this on Google. Nothing really, then Bobby, sitting at the table playing solitaire, piped up ‘Cards.’ ‘Cards! What?’ I turned at him.”
“Cards?” The other three looked at Betty.
“You have a deck in there?” Betty leaned over Sister to open the long thin middle drawer in the desk. “Most everyone has a deck of cards somewhere.”
“I don’t, but I bet there’s a deck in Shaker’s desk. He would play cards with the boys once a week down at Roger’s Corner.” She named the country convenience store miles down the road, which had not been altered since after World War II. Betty opened the drawer in the old schoolhouse desk. “Aha. Now watch carefully.” She walked back to stand in front of Sister.
Weevil and Tootie watched as Betty flicked a card from the bottom of the deck with her forefinger.
“I don’t get it.” Weevil furrowed his brow.
“You saw me do that, right?”
“We all did.” Sister stared at the cards in front of her on the desk as Betty kept flicking.
Stopping, Betty remarked, “If my forefinger and second finger, my middle finger, were cut off at the knuckle, squared off, a proper operation, you would never see me flick a card from the bottom.” As they stared at the cards, then her again, she explained. “Whoever those men were or even what they did now, we may never know, but they knew cards. They were probably cardsharks. Wasn’t Parker Bell imprisoned for gambling? As I recall, Gigi Sabatini mentioned he had had good luck with men who had not committed violent crimes. You know, stuff that isn’t violent.”
“Everyone deserves a second chance but I truly believe there are no victimless crimes. Think of the people ruined when Enron tanked.” Sister folded her hands over the cards.
Betty looked at the two younger people. “You all were probably too young, but Kenneth Lay, head of Enron, misled people, probably the easiest way to put it, falsified profits. He also promised millions to the University of Missouri. Can you imagine the shock? The school had budgeted those millions.”
“So there is no victimless crime.” Sister handed the cards back to Betty. “Actually, in some ways entrenched stupidity creates its own victims. It’s not a crime but, well, I don’t know. How did we get off on this?” She looked at the cards in Betty’s hand. “Okay. What’s your theory?”
“My theory is those deaths are part of a crime network. So Parker Bell and the man in the truck either ran afoul of whoever they were working for or got greedy. They had to be in on the take. As for Delores, killed in the same way, her death is connected to all this.”
“But what take?” Tootie’s voice lifted up.
“If we knew that, we’d know what this is about.” Betty walked back returning the cards to the drawer. “So here’s what crosses my mind. Gigi Sabatini, we don’t really know him. He’s thrown his money around and he hired an ex-con. Maybe he’s pulling the strings. He can’t be happy about the incident on the farm. But I don’t think that’s why Parker was killed. Maybe Gigi does.”
“Gray said Gigi made his money producing then distributing high-grade plumbing fixtures. His products are sold all over our country.”
Betty laughed. “A royal flush.”
Sister appeared appalled. “Do you eat with that mouth?”
Weevil’s eyes widened then Tootie, who had known the two older women since seventh grade at Custis Hall, quietly reassured him. “They’re always this way.”
“Okay.” He smiled.
Betty patted his arm. “Weevil, when you’ve been friends with someone for decades, it all comes out…the good, the bad, the ugly. You know, ugly with shoes.”
“I beg your pardon?” He blinked.
“I don’t know if it’s a Southern expression but it’s an American one. Another one is ‘She doesn’t wash her fruit.’ ”
“What?” He laughed.
“Means someone is cra
zy.” Betty laughed with him. “Come on now, Canadians must have silly expressions.”
“Mrs. Franklin, we are totally reasonable people.” He busted out laughing and they all laughed together.
“Well, Betty, you and Bobby have given us something to think about.”
“My thought is, there’s money to be made and money at stake.” Betty then changed the subject. “We ought to leave fifteen minutes early tomorrow to get to Kingswood.” She cited a newer fixture.
“Right.” Sister then suggested to Weevil, “Leave the youngsters back. We don’t know this place that well and even though we have the tracking collars, let’s wait until next time.”
“Right-O.” He grinned. “British expression.”
Betty fired at him, “I thought you were Canadian?”
“I am, but we’re closer to the Brits than you are.” He smiled.
CHAPTER 21
February 27, 2020 Thursday
Swirls of sleet demolished hope of warmer weather. Sister, leading the small Thursday group, picked her way down a steep hill made sloppy by the sleet. Sam and Gray rode immediately behind her, as did Kasmir and Alida. Freddie Thomas followed them, along with the treasurer, Ronnie Haslip. Most members had watched the early-morning weather report and snuggled back in bed. Staff does not have that luxury.
Aces led the pack, now at the foot of the hill. Young, he was coming into his own.
“Fading,” Diana alerted them.
Dasher, her littermate, nose down, trotted determinedly. “Here.”
The older hounds paused for a moment. Aces knew better than to forge ahead. One respects one’s elders, regardless of species…well, some species.
“Got to be Charlene and she’s heading home.” Dasher recognized the red vixen’s signature scent.
“What’s she doing over here at Kingswood?” Barrister wondered.
“Hard to say, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she found something good to eat.” Zorro sniffed then walked over to an opened sardine can, which made his point. “Bet you Cindy Chandler put these out, including on the border between the properties. Good way to get foxes to travel.”
Charlene was traveling at a faster pace, for she knew the sleet somewhat intensified scent. Any moisture gives scent a bit more tang unless it’s a driving hard rain or blizzard. In the prime of life, the beautiful red vixen had heard the hounds before she smelled them and they her. So she gobbled the last of the sardines, a delicious treat, then started for home, but home was After All Farm. Given the drive of the pack, she’d need to duck in somewhere closer.
Heads down, the riders trotted across the unkempt meadow on the Kingswood side of the large open space. Made by alluvial deposits over the centuries it, too, held scent. Not that the humans could smell it, but the old human hunters learned a bit about scent over the years. Mostly they learned that nobody knew what the hell it was. Sure, it’s the odor of one’s game, but why on a day like today is it heating up just enough, whereas on another day, seemingly the same weather, nobody can find a thing?
Betty now rode in the unkempt field on the north side of Hangman’s Ridge. Tootie, thinking ahead, galloped to the far side of the ridge, footing awful, but was ready for a run that might head east. Weevil hung right behind his hounds, who now ran, speaking loudly.
By the time Sister and the field reached the narrow deer path on the north side of the rough stuff, everyone felt grateful to still be mounted. Footing proved awful.
Charlene crossed the high flat plateau with the enormous hangman’s tree in the middle, scooted across it to shoot down the south side, scattering minks who had come back too early, being as fooled by the weather as the humans, as she ran. The minks hurried to their dens. Opportunists, they liked coming down the ridge to the Roughneck Farm side and snapping up leftovers, but they needed to be careful of the house dogs. If weather turned dreadful, there were enough outbuildings to duck into that no little thief need be inconvenienced. These minks descended from the minks at Pattypan Forge and returned there for most of winter. Aunt Netty proved such a boor, the younger ones left early.
The branches of the trees shivered in the wind. The lower ones, three centuries old, massive width, didn’t bend as the high branches did. But the wind, powerful across this expanse, could move them a bit so it looked as though they shivered.
Baker, one of the two “B” girls, stretched out, ran hard. As the hounds reached the path down the south side, the first-year entry jumped sideways as a mink shot across her path.
Weevil, now on the plateau, squeezed Showboat. The sleet stung, his hands in his thick string gloves throbbed. Like the animals, he disliked it up on the ridge. Within minutes he, too, slowed a bit to descend at a forty-five-degree angle.
Charlene knew better than to flash across an open meadow and the only way to After All was to do just that until she reached the fence line between the two farms. She cut left to duck under Tootie’s cabin, squeezed through the hole in the lattice hiding the dirt underneath the porch, crawled into Comet’s den.
“Sorry, Comet. Getting bad out there.”
“Is. There’s room enough for two.” The slender gray fox, accustomed to pressed visitors, curled up on a pile of old towels, leaving the dog bed that he had saved from the garbage, for Rooster had chewed it. Charlene nestled in the dog bed while the pack carried on at the latticework.
“You’d think they’d have sense enough to know it’s hopeless.” Charlene rested her head on her front paws.
“They’re bred to run around and make noise.” Comet couldn’t grasp why any creature with the canine mind could be so useless.
“Cheater,” Baker called out.
Weevil gathered his hounds together. Having only been out over an hour he thought he might cast to the Old Lorillard place. As he turned to jump the coop, a loud crack and a crash made people pull up their horses. A limb from one of the apple trees tore off in the wind. Fortunately, no one was in the orchard, but they stood on the farm road next to the orchard.
“Weevil, think we got lucky there,” Sister said as she turned toward the kennels in the distance. “Let’s put hounds up.”
Once horses were settled in the trailers, the staff horses in the barn, the small group gathered in the tack room for hot coffee and tea on the hotplate. Everyone brought sandwiches, cookies, and brownies, enough to fill you for the drive back.
As they talked, Sister’s cell rang; she intended to ignore it but something made her look. She put the phone to her ear, walking out into the colder main aisle.
Listening intently Sister said, “Thanks for calling. I’ll tell our sheriff. I’ll call you later. We got back from a so-so hunt, not bad, not great, but a decent run. The diehards are in the tack room.”
As she clicked off her phone, Gray walked out with her fleece-lined old bomber jacket, which was hanging in the tack room, draping it over her shoulders.
“Thank you, honey. That was O.J. There’s been another theft. In Louisville. Another Munnings, but the thief didn’t make it. As to the suspect in the Buckingham theft, he was cleared. He had truck trouble near the house.”
“They caught the thief this time?” Gray’s eyes brightened.
“Yes, but he was dead. They found him in a truck, another small box truck. The police were called by a neighbor who saw the truck pull out of the driveway. A construction company name painted on the side. Someone followed him and killed him. They got the painting. He may have stolen it but he was killed.”
“This couldn’t have been in the city. Someone would have seen something.” Gray stroked his chin.
“Shelbyville. He made it as far as Shelbyville to turn onto the back road to Springfield. At least that’s how I know it. You go inside, I’ll be right there. Want to call Ben right away and he can call his counterpart in Shelbyville.”
“No one else was harmed? Not killed l
ike the Lexington lady?”
“Just the driver, strangled with a Fennell’s lead shank. And oh, the painting was Why Weren’t You Out Yesterday. Two ladies sidesaddle.”
Gray shook his head as he opened the door to the tack room.
CHAPTER 22
February 29, 2020 Saturday
Father Mancusco rode with Reverend Sally Taliaferro, a Catholic and Episcopalian trotting toward a part of Beveridge Hundred, the farm abutting Tattenhall Station to the south. Yvonne, driving as usual with Aunt Daniella and Kathleen in the car, marveled at the change in the weather. From cold, high winds it transformed into lowering skies, a mercury in the mid-forties, yet a bitter chill remained.
“No speaking.” Aunt Daniella cracked her window slightly.
The temperature, cold, made her face tingle. She listened intently while wrapping a heavy cashmere shawl tighter around her shoulders.
“I thought low clouds, cool temperature but not too cold nor too warm was best.” Kathleen was determined to learn.
“Usually it is, but even on a good day it might take time to bolt your fox. It’s easiest when you catch scent of someone going home or, given it’s breeding season, a gentleman fox visiting a lady. You know, breeding, convincing a mate is a lot of work.” Aunt Daniella smiled.
“My feeling is, let men do all the work. I’m not chasing anyone.” Yvonne slowed, as a big jump loomed up ahead.
“Oh, when did you ever chase anyone?” Aunt Daniella teased her. “Fess up.”
“In high school. There was this guy in music class. I thought he was wonderful but he wasn’t interested in me. I was crushed.”
“Had to be gay.” Aunt Daniella laughed. “Before you have a moment, Kathleen, my son, so handsome, was gay.”
“Why would I have a moment?” Kathleen’s eyebrows raised.
“I suppose someone could take that remark as anti-gay. One doesn’t know what to say anymore,” Aunt Daniella remarked.
Yvonne laughed. “That is hardly your problem.”
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